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Sunday, July 17, 2016

“Purgatory: A Love Story,” by Lis Jakobsen

Margot claimed the
restaurant booth and started the wait for her friend Derrick.

There’d been a time when
she thought their larking friendship might deepen and inspire an occasional
commemorative gesture of promptness on his part. This hadn’t happened.

Instead, Margot had come
to ritualize the elastic time between her arrival and his, starting each vigil
with an affirmation: accept, only
accept.

As a lapsed Catholic,
she knew she didn’t have the full complement of faith needed to take the
concept to the point of grace. But it
sure beat the hell out of drumming her fingers on the table for an hour.

She’d unpack and lay out
on the table what she joked to friends was her version of the Catholic mass
travel kit. It contained sacred vessels and essential liturgical items: a
time-waster mystery novel; personal journal; cryptic crossword puzzle; and
phone. At least she wouldn’t need the
bottle of Saint Bernadette Spring Wateror the sacrificial trail mix this evening.

The rest of these,
though, would see her through the wait for Derrick, who made lateness seem like
a wild horse of his own invention, one only he could ride successfully into the
corral while waving his big white hat at the crowd.

Margot, by contrast,
revered punctuality to the cusp of fetish and usually showed up at least 20
minutes early to any appointment, threatre showing, book lecture or Hudson’s
Bay white sale.

She found it absolutely
necessary to arrive early so as to choose the best seat, read her program,
examine the stage, study the menu and organize her coat and purse.

“There, that’s better,” she’d
tell herself, straightening her signature pearl necklace. It had been her mother’s
and once the long strand sat the way it should on her neck she felt
grounded.

Derrick, on the other
hand, used, “Sorry I’m late,” as standard greeting, the equivalent of,
“Hi. How are you?” and if he ever got a
chilly reception for his blithe lack of concern, his buoyant arrival never
seemed even slightly wobbled by it.

He had a way of melting
away any initial resistance to his singular brand of congenital
insouciance. There was a manner of
entering a room as if everyone were entirely relieved to see him, even
strangers. As if the table gave a sigh
of gratitude when he rested his arms on it.
As if the menu thrummed with pleasure at his touch.

And, dammit, the
waitresses did take his order as if on a mission to tell the angels he needed a
dirty martini.

Her thoughts were
interrupted when she felt a current move through the room. She looked up and
there he was, 45 minutes past the appointed time.

“You’re late,” she said
as he sat down.

What would the excuse be
this time?

“Traffic?” she
suggested.

No answer. Just a smile. That smile. Today, it bugged
her. “Lost track of time, did you, while you were rewriting one of your
rejected novels?”

“Ha.
Ha. Ha. Very funny, Marg-gie.”

“You know I hate it when
you call me Marg-gie. Are you depressed?

Smiling more broadly
now. “Clearly not.”

“In love?”

“Bingo.”

“Not again,” she said,
lightly, but turning her head sharply, searching the room for someone to take
her order.

“Yup,” he said, looking
up in time to catch the waitress’ eye.

There would be the other
kind of waiting now. She began to worry the pearls in her long necklace as if
it were an heirloom rosary.

Lis Jakobsen is a retired public relations consultant who
clocked in a lot of job writing over the years, including plenty of speechwriting,
mostly for government. It was definitely
not from the “I have a dream” sphere.
She lives in Hamilton where she has happily turned her hand to other
kinds of fiction.

Brian Henry has been a book editor, writer, and creative writing instructor for more than 25 years. He teaches creative writing at Ryerson University. He also leads weekly creative writing courses in Burlington, Mississauga, Oakville and Georgetown and conducts Saturday workshops throughout Ontario. His proudest boast is that he has helped many of his students get published.